Most editions from the last 100+ years are good and differences in the Greek text are small. Only Bérard's Budé edition is really weird, avoid. The one you are linking to is very old, but the text is probably ok, the commentary has good insights but is partly outdated; the problem is also that it's aimed at a more advanced audience and doesn't answer beginner's questions. So I don't really recommend it although I use it myself. The current up-to-date scholarly edition is van Thiel's, but that's not important for you probably. I think you should rather pick an edition with a good translation/commentary. If there's an edition with a good Spanish translation or commentary, that might be for you. In English, the new updated Loeb edition from the 1990's is good (the old is not, avoid). For a commented edition, the best for beginners is in German by Ameis-Hentze-Cauer. If you don't know German, you have an older school commentary by Merry (not the same as you linked to above) and a more recent Stanford, which is still in copyright.

A scholarly edition is an edition that give especial attention to the transmission of the text and to how the text is constituted from ancient manuscripts, what different readings there are and which one is most probably correct. The evidence is given in the bottom of the page in what is called a critical apparatus.

Scholarly editions don't usually have commentary or historical/interpretative information (except maybe in the preface) and they don't usually have a translation; just the Greek text and critical apparatus. (The French Budés are a bit different though, they have a translation and some commentary too).

Many commented/student editions don't have critical apparatus at all, or a very small one.

Here is a page of a scholarly edition with a very large critical apparatus (the small print in the lower half of the page)

So my point was that although van Thiel is the most up-to-date scholarly edition, since it has the most up-to-date critical apparatus, this isn't probably a very important consideration for you at present. You rather (probably) want an edition with a good translation and/or commentary. Van Thiel has neither translation nor commentary.

I have finally opted for Geoffrey Steadman. Maybe grammar notes offer too much assistance, but they are very short anyway, so I think that here applies the rule of better more than less. However, what I particularly like of this guide is that it is very self-contained: I don't need to look up the dictionary all the time, because the vocabulary is already included in the commentary along with the text. Moreover, the author has done a frequency analysis of the words and only includes in the commentary the words which occurr 14 or fewer times in the three books of the Odyssey that the guide covers; the rest of the words, that occurr 15 or more times, are considered as part of the "core vocabulary", which is supposed already known. I encounter these bounds very satisfactory, for in most cases I already know or I can infer the most part of the words that are even in the commentary, so I practically have no need of looking in the dictionary. Finally, I encounter very useful the morphologic notes, i.e. the identification of unusual aorist and perfect forms.I wonder if there is something like Steadman's guide for the whole Odyssey or Iliad. But I suppose that life is not so easy...

I didn't know, but there are other two Geoffrey Steadman's guides:- Odyssey 9-12- Iliad 6 and 22They are available here: http://geoffreysteadman.com, together with other useful material (like flashcards with the vocabulary, and guides for other Greek and Latin texts).

Steadman's books look great; I didn't know about them (or they didn't exist) at the time I would have needed them myself, so I haven't used them. The only problem is that they they don't offer help with the first books of either the Iliad or the Odyssey, so you can't start from the beginning with them.

To me it looks like you are making good progress, so reading the whole Iliad and/or the Odyssey is a realistic goal. It will take time but it's worth it! If you want to do that (Do it! Do it!), my advise is to jump to the beginning of either epic as soon as possible and go for it.

If you decide you want read an entire epic, you'll probably need some help to that. I haven't used this one myself, but it's probably good (for Odyssey books 1 & 2), I have found other writings by Jones helpful myself:http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... ssey+jones

Then there are all those other commentaries we have discussed earlier.

It depends of course on your budget; if you have access to a university library, you'll find most of these books there. If you're tight on budget and without a library, you'll have to rely on what you have on the internet, which isn't actually that bad either - Steadman and the (school) edition of Merry are probably the best now, if you don't know German.

Ok, you convinced me with the second Do it. It would be great to read the whole Odyssey. No more talking, I will order Stanford's edition, which has a more recently edition, right? (Unfortunally, I don't know German, I am between Merry and Stanford). In the mean time (post mail shipping to my country is today the actual odyssey, and it may take a while) I will continue from the paternal hand of Geoffrey Steadman, so that I may feel more comfortable when Mr. Stanford or Mr. Merry arrives.

I don't really know, I haven't used the book myself. I've seen a more favorable review of that by Rutherford, who has himself written a Green and Yellow commentary on some books of the Odyssey. Probably you won't know what works for you before you try... As for me, I don't really like Stanford. Can't please everybody

I linked to Merry (in two vols) in my first post in this thread, you can try it there. The commentaries are at the end of the books.

The Odyssey has a lost sequel, the Telegony, which was not written by Homer. It was usually attributed in antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta, but in one source was said to have been stolen from Musaeus by Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene